My Garand

[Latigo]

[Latigo]

It seems that Mr. McCoy and I will be speaking today. He feels there may be a timing problem. He's very ill now and I won't be taking much of his time. With his advice I intend to solve it here. I posted this in case you gents thought of something I've missed. I was hoping to not have to bother him at all if it appeared to be something obvious to you. I suspect pressures too low may be involved, but I've never dealt with a M1 that was a custom build.

Thanks for any advice.

BTW........ Close examination of the trigger group shows a positive lock up and plenty of hammer/sear contact before release. The 1st trigger stage seems to be a 2.5 pull.



Makers Medallion.



Stage one.



Stage two.



Any ideas at all? Dumb in the first place to try a 175 in lieu of a 190? Any ideas before we bother Mr. McCoy?

Latigo
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Latigo,

Mac adjusts his triggers to the absolute minimum sear engagement, with most of the weight in the first stage. I was sure that mine would double, but it doesn't. It has been very, very dependable. But mine is single lugged only at the back. (I went and dug my triple lugged rifle out of the safe a while back ... it was built be Clint Fowler, and the forward lugs are slightly different and located more forward).

These rifles are meant to be fired with the buttplate HARD into your shoulder, even in offhand where you can't use the sling. If you use a "soft" hold as in benchrest shooting, you are probably bump-firing it. The combination of the way the rifle recoils, and the trigger technique ("milking the trigger") will make it double, or even simulate full auto fire. I can do this on purpose, it gets folks attention with an M1A and ten rounds in the magazine. (if you are using your mechanical rest, you may get the same efect)

I would fire it in a good solid prone postition with a tight sling. If you want the security of a rest for ammo testing, put a sandbag under your gloved hand. If it still doubles, do the same with M72-equivalent 173 or 175 grain loads. If it still doubles, it needs some attention. The Easy Button would be a new hammer tuned for a bit more sear engagement. If all this doesn't work, then you need to talk the The Master himself. The "unkown" to me is how Mac's forward lug system may effect the way the rifle flexes under recoil forces, and how that may effect the minimum tolerable sear engagement.

Hope this helps ...

Resp'y,
Bob S.

USN Distinguished Marksman No. O-067

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I was able to speak with Mr. McCoy last evening, probably for the last time. His protoge is taking over everything very soon now and I don't want to bother him again. At age 92 he doesn't need to be answering questions from someone into his first Garand. He was good enough to explain the exact nature of the rifle to me.

He said there is not a mechanical way for that rifle to double. It was all me. His exact words were, "Chamber each round with your fingers. Don't use one of those single round setups. Let the bolt close narurally. Breathe on that trigger, don't just pull it. Do all that and you'll be shooting right along with the best of them, but only if you're capable. The rifle already is. It was designed for 190s, so use 190s. The load we gave you is for military brass. Use it."

The gent taking over all of it is Mark Hendricks. He's been studying under Mr. McCoy for a long time and it now ready to keep the shop running with the same quality Garands. He's avaliable to me anytime I want to call, so I'm sure I'll have more questions later. We loaded 190 SMKs with Mr. McCoy's load data last night and we got load data from Mark for 175 SMKs as well.
I'll post targets after we take it all out to our range saturday or sunday. Its still pretty cold here so we'll be shooting from our ShootShed at the 100 yard mark. Its going to be a fun summer.

One thing I forgot. His load data is hot! A few of them with amounts over book maximums by a full grain, and one that's two grains over.
Latigo

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I think it does help. I was prone with the rifle bagged fore and aft. My usual way to pull the trigger on any rifle is to pull with folllow through and hold the trigger to the rear before making a conscious release............................. but considering his trigger setup, now I'm not so sure.
I also think I remember having pulled the trigger after doubling and there was no release, just as if the hammer had not reset at all. I cycled the bolt and it fired the next chambered round ok.

Ok, so the load was with a FLS case, TTL less than manual length, primer seated just below flush, 175gr SMK seated 10 thous off the lands, 45.5gr of 4895 and a MV of 2540. I had a guy tell me about the US Army Manual data book listing the 173gr with 50gr of 4895. It sounded way wrong so I googled it and found there had been an error in TM 43-0001-27 saying that 50gr of 4895 was a match load with the 173gr projectile. I'm thinking now that I should have been at 46.5gr of 4895 anyway to make things work with the right MV and pressures. With a gas port tuned specifically for a 190, can chamber pressures that are too low cause any of this?
And the soft hold sure could have happened. I was excited about the whole thing anyway.

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That's how I came to have this rifle, and I haven't stopped smiling yet!

[big103]

Wow nice those are something sought after. Even before don passed away.



If it doesn`t have an adjustable gas plug which it probably doesn`t then I would stick with the weights you are using now. The system was probably tuned to that weight. I cant say what would happen if you go down in weight. But I know what happens if you went up in weight and like you said bent op rod would be best case scenario.

[Latigo]

Hi Brian. The 190s are exactly what we use. The comments on flexing/vibration were written by a High Masters US Navy Distinguished Marksman, who's a friend of Mr. McCoy's.
Most of what you've written is what I already do, but thanks for the comments. Factually, I've never had a rifle of this calibre and profile, and it's been a learning process for me.

Virtually all of that could have been avoided had the guy who originally contracted the rifle understood it was intended to be a single shot rifle and passed that on to us. He's the guy who makes instructional and promotional video DVD's for people like Mr. McCoy and David Tubb, among a raft of other celebrities. After the rifle underwwent the recommended break-in, it went into storage for some 8 years. It turns out that he actually forgot what the rifle was and the designed intent of the build. Lucky for me.

Since Mr.McCoy passed away we've had numerous enquiries about purchasing it, but this is one rifle that will be used by me and other than that it will be in the armoury permanently. I'm hoping to get a solid handle on it this summer and get my feet wet this year in Garand competitions in Montana. Once I feel secure enough I'm determined to take it to Camp Perry where the other two brother rifles have already achieved the top in High Masters Class. I do have names of those two shooters someplace and I'll try to find them.

The rifle is capable, so now I have to attempt to meet it's standards. I'm not used to shooting a rifle with a strongly braced sling in either prone or offhand. Swiss rifles don't have that same shooting discipline.
Fortunately for me we have a 500 yard private range and access to a 1,000 yard range just down the valley from us.

I'm a pretty good shot with a rifle, but the Garand is a different world than our Swiss rifles, and this sucker is heavy!

[wjc]

Gotta say. That is an absolutely gorgeous Garand.

Enjoy shooting it...you lucked out!